The Point
by SleepingSeeker
Summary: Donatello reaches a breaking point and Michelangelo is there to offer an answer to a question posed in a moment of desperation and despair. Set some years after the 2k12 show. My first attempt at first person. Rated K just to be safe. One shot. But really, another fluff (mostly fluff) piece from me! I must be feeling guilty . . . Novus Ordo Seclorum, this one's for you, buddy.


**A/N: This is dedicated to Novus Order Seclorum - who challenged me to write in first person and who has a soft spot for Donnie and April angst stories. I hope you enjoy it.**

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**The Point**

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I crept up, making sure my footfalls ringing along the metal track reached my brother, determined not to surprise him. He'd been so violent lately. Unexpectedly lashing out at all of us out of the blue and for random things, releasing his anger, pouring it out like an erupting volcano, where before he would keep it to himself. Like the still waters of a deep lake, he always appeared calm and serene, never letting on the storm of feelings that lashed throughout the inner workings of his mind. Bottled up and contained. Festering. We should have known. We should have looked out for him better instead of making jokes and belittling his feelings like the way we'd done. Guilt was something I was getting uncomfortably familiar with, even more than Leo. No one had teased more than I.

Once she left, after she made it perfectly clear that she would write every day from London when we all knew it was nothing but lies to make the parting sweeter, well, we knew it would be hard on him, but we never expected this. We'd all joked at first, made light of his suffering, ignorant to how badly he was bleeding inside. The weeks passed. Time slowed. No letters arrived. It stung. But we all understood. She'd given up so much just from knowing us. I would've ran out if given a chance to go to some fancy art school overseas, too. Heck, I would've ran the minute my dad was turned into a giant bat monster.

But now it had been years. One day it was like he snapped. I made some stupid comment about seeing April on the Travel Network while they were filming in Great Britain and he went nuts. Bonkers. He trashed his lab, and went on a rampage through the lair until Leo subdued him. Well, he tackled him when he ran into Master Splinter's room. I couldn't believe he would've done anything bad in there. I mean, no one goes in there except Leo nowadays. And every once in a while, when Raph is sad I notice him slipping inside. Sometimes I go in there just to smell him again. I know it's weird, but I can't help it. I stick my face in some of his old pillows and it's like, if I close my eyes, I can pretend he's there with me, in the room, just out of sight. It helps me relax when my chest gets too tight from Raph and Leo's fights or the fear of the oncoming winter and whether or not this year we'll come as close to starving as we had two years ago right after he'd died. No one wanted to scavenge and the season came out of nowhere and was so rough, none of us were prepared. Yeah, that had been bad.

I looked up where Donnie was perched, long limbs still so wiry and thin. It was as though he'd been stuck at eighteen when she left while we all grew up around him. I know I outweighed him by a good fifty pounds or more. He was still taller than me, but some days it's like I could break him in two if I wanted to. He wasn't eating much and Raph and I were wondering about the pills I'd spotted one night when I went into the lab to ask for some help with the game controller again. There were rows and rows of them inside that cabinet before he slammed the door shut. Raph wanted to tell Leo but the funny feeling in the pit of my stomach told me we should just leave it. We'd been worried about him. But now Raphael was done. He'd tolerated the outbursts and the violence, but the suspected drug abuse sort of put him over the top. Now he remained locked in his room whenever the two might be in the same room together.

The wind came up off the river, chilly and smelling of dead fish and garbage, of human waste and some pungent sour smell I couldn't identify. The metal rafters were still warm from the afternoon sun beating down on it all day. I swung up, making as much noise as I could, grunting and making a big show of it. But he kept his face turned towards the last dimming streaks of that golden hued sunset. I glanced and squinted, uncomfortably aware of just how much the color of the dying light reflecting off the buildings matched her hair. A bright auburn. Thankfully, the illusion faded to a dusty pink. I cleared my throat.

"Hey, bro," I said, lamely.

Then I noticed he had something in his hand. I didn't really like being up here with Donnie, but I was glad I tailed him this evening. He'd had a strange vibe going on all day and it left me feeling itchy and jumpy, like I sometimes get right before something bad was going to happen. A week before Master Splinter had his heart attack, I couldn't sit still for longer than five minutes at a time. It had gotten so bad that I couldn't sleep and had actually begun to worry that I had some late blooming ADHD or something. Lucky me, it was just that sixth sense I have telling me my dad was going to die. When Donnie climbed up the side of the bridge, I felt like my heart had stopped and had to remind myself to breathe as I quickly followed behind him.

"Whatcha got there?"

Chocolate brown eyes rolled to the side and regarded me with mild disinterest. I took the cue to sit and scooted closer, a big happy grin plastered on my face. Hoping it looked calming. Or at least cute. I was still considered the cute one of the bunch, wasn't I? His eyes were ringed with circles and laced with red veins. His pupils looked too large for the light and I worried about those pills again.

To my surprise, he handed the paper to me. The action was jerky and so fast I almost missed it. His fingers released it so quickly, the wind nearly tore it out of my grasp before I really grabbed it. I snatched it out of the air with a panicked gasp. I chuckled, but he remained still. The twilight was deepening. I held up the paper and immediately felt my stomach drop.

In neatly scripted handwriting was an apology. A really long one. My eyes scanned the lines of rambling, broken apologies disguised as simple questions about Donnie's health and the health of everyone else. She asked about Master Splinter. A lump formed in my throat at that part. I never really thought about trying to contact April and let her know he had passed. That would have been something that Donnie should have done. I glanced at him and suddenly wondered if he had tried. But it then went on and on about the fun she was having traveling with friends and exploring the world and how it had really been the best decision of her life to leave New York. And there it was. She might as well have written this in poison ink and addressed it to Donatello alone. Even I could make out the message there. She wasn't so glad she left the city. She meant them. Him.

I resisted the urge to crumple the note in my fist. I felt a wave of heat as my face flushed and at the same time my stomach got really cold and twisted up. After all this time. To just drop this out of the blue, to make it seem as though it had only been a few days . . . or a week. As if she didn't know how much it had hurt Donnie that she just left like that, without ever talking to him. I remember how Donnie had confided that he needed to talk to April before she left. That he had made up his mind and was going to tell her everything, as if she didn't already know and hadn't already blown him off. I realized with a lump choking me that I had pretty much mocked him all the way out of the lair for being so stupid for being a genius and other taunts. I never meant to hurt him . . . not this badly. Not really. I was just being stupid and ignorant. A little brat. If I could, I would take it all back.

"Donnie . . . man, I . . ."

He huffed and I shut my mouth. "I . . ." he started and it came out a croak. He cleared his throat and started again, "I thought," he said with a laugh that was harsh and sharp around the edges, "I thought that I would wait, you know?" The question rose and broke. He looked at me and his face dropped into an anguished frown. "Why can't I let this go?"

I immediately reached out to him, but he snatched the letter from my hand and tore it into pieces, growling as he threw it out in front of him. The wind caught the bits of paper and scattered it, some of them blew back into our faces. The irony was not lost on me. Donnie stood up then and my heart was in my throat.

"Donnie," I said and hated the way my voice cracked, you'd think at twenty four I would have outgrown that.

"What's the point?"

"The point?" I repeated and had to fight the urge to grab hold of the belt around his waist, noting that it hung loosely around his thin frame.

He twisted around and his eyes had this wild glint that I really did not like. I stood. I gripped his forearm. The wind buffeted against us. The metal moaned and creaked. The traffic sped by below us like tiny racing insects.

"The point . . . the point is . . ." I licked my lips, my mind racing and coming up with nothing. All those years of quick wit, sharp and cutting. I could burn 'em down with a snap and now, when my brother's life depended on it, I was coming up with nothing. Donnie leaned forward and my hand curled around him, trying to get a better grip on him.

"She never gave me a second thought. I've been nothing but a joke to her. To everyone. This entire time. I thought it was . . . I thought it was sort of romantic, you know? Waiting. Waiting for her to see me. To see my _worth_," he said the word as if squeezing it right out of his lungs, painfully. "But now I get it. I see it all so clearly," again with the hollow laughter, somehow that scared me more than the height, more than the manic look in his eyes when he was talking. He bounced up and down and I swear to god my heart was trying to leap out of my body through my mouth.

"D-Donnie! The point is we need you! Okay? We need you! We've always needed you," I blurted in desperation and noticed his body language shift a tiny bit. I wetted my lips and plunged on, spilling out what was coming to me, praying it would be enough, because I really didn't want to have to test my diving ability. Because if he went over, I was going in right after him and I had a feeling that neither of us would survive the impact from this height.

"And not just the science stuff, man! The . . . The soft way you explain things to me. No one else has the patience with me like you do! How many times have I seen Leo go to you when he was upset. You're a great listener, you know that? Do ya, bro? Did you hear me, heh, heh, okay, lame joke. But! But that's another great thing about you. You just don't tolerate me and my stupid jokes and Raph and his . . . gas, heh, I mean, his temper and Leo hiding his injuries until they get all nasty and infected . . . I mean, you're like our glue, okay?" I didn't know when it started, but my face was wet with tears. I sniffled. Donatello was staring down at me with an intense look on his face. In the deepening darkness, his eyes stood out like an owl's.

"If you do this we're gonna fall apart, Don! And then . . . who will . . . who will put us back together?"

And in that moment, I saw him crack. He pitched forward and my eyes almost popped out of my head, but he wasn't gonna jump. No. He was reaching out for me, heaving and sobbing and then we both nearly toppled over and all that wonderful heart to heart stuff nearly went to waste. We stayed like that crying and hugging, shaking and shuddering, slapping each other on the shell, until our sobs broke down into uncomfortable bursts of laughter, which then morphed into an all-out lunatic-fest of giggles as we leaned against the now cool metal beams, still keeping each other close, still afraid to completely let one another out of each other's grasp.

"You feel better?"

Donnie only nodded and I was glad to see that hard light was gone from his eyes, that the tears had somehow washed away the dazed faraway look he had when I first got there. I knew we had a long way to go, still. There was the whole situation with those pills . . . but one step at a time, I say.

"You wanna go home?"

He shook his head. Softly, he asked, "Do you mind staying here, until the sun rises, Mikey?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure. I can do that," I replied and did my best to get more comfortable.

He looked sheepish but said, "I just want to make it through the night, I mean . . . with someone watching over me . . . in case . . . I change . . . not that I'm going to. But it would be better if I had someone stay with me."

"Sure, bro. I won't leave ya. I never will. That's the point of family, isn't it?"

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**A/N:** I have to admit that choked me up. I hope you all enjoyed it and Novus, I hope I did alright. xo


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